


A Code She Could Never Break

by woollen_pharaohs



Category: The Bletchley Circle
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-30
Updated: 2015-01-18
Packaged: 2018-03-04 08:06:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3025007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/woollen_pharaohs/pseuds/woollen_pharaohs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life was a code forever changing, forever the hardest to work out. Susan either had to find a way to break the code or to leave it alone, and she couldn't very well do both.</p><p>An exploration of Susan and Millie's relationship before and after the show (Season 1 only).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Disonnections

   **present.**

Susan hovers behind the group as Millie rummages through her over packed purse to find her house keys, watching the way she craftily seeks her keys out whilst simultaneously preparing herself for what’s to come. Millie’s always been good at that sort of thing, knowing how to pretend, knowing when to save time to plan for an upcoming performance. Her rummaging signifies a saved moment for a recited speech, which she steam rolls into as she lets her friends into her small apartment. It’s funny, if you didn’t know Millie like Susan did, you’d think she was acting perfectly calmly, perfectly casual. But in reality that casualness is manufactured in order to mask anxiety. Even extroverts can become self-conscious amongst a group of old friends. Perhaps the very fact that they’re old friends is the problem.

Millie lets out a pitch perfect sigh of relief, “here we are,” she quickly sweeps yesterday’s lunch off the table as she continues, “oh sorry it’s such a tip!”

Lucy, her hand on one of Millie’s rickety wooden chairs, her eyes scanning the room, “it’s lovely, don’t worry.”

Susan has her eyes fixed on a collage of photographs on Millie’s wall, candids of France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Greece and Egypt, all of those places they’d talked about going so long ago. In only nine years Millie had travelled through more than half of Europe and what had Susan achieved? She started a family, her brilliance masqueraded by ‘clerical work’, the common lie and undeniable truth known only to women who did the work of men.

Susan feels eyes on her and she turns quickly away from the photographs, passes off careful stares from Lucy and immerses herself in the work before them. Sitting opposite Millie, the smell of incense and the dim afternoon light coming through Millie’s curtains, she feels unable to concentrate. As she crosses leaden lines through possible correlations, each arm movement causing the chair beneath her to creak, she leaves he brain to focus on the data crunching and lets her mind recall dreams once forgotten.

 

**past.**

Four years on and the war seemed like it was never going to end. Endless information rolling in on hot paper, endless codes to crack, forever re-interpreting re-formatting invented to deceive the code breakers. It seemed like an uphill battle but the papers informed them all they were winning, unbeknownst to the public they were winning no thanks to the clever ladies at Bletchley. Going into it they knew they would never be credited, it was part of the job description.

For the ladies at Bletchley the war could end at any second. Any particular discovery of enemy secrets could change the whole game and it would be thanks to them. So it’s no surprise that it’s a popular thing to do for the girls to dream about what lay before them after the war resolves.

Millie sits at the opposite end of Susan’s slim bed, one leg slung lazily across the edge. She folds out a map on the top of the bed sheets, spreading out the folds.

“What’s this?” Susan asks, sitting poised on her end of the bed, back straight, always the model student.

“It’s a map, _genius_ ,” Millie replies, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her left ear, but it falls back to the way it was as soon as she moves her hand away.

“Mmm,” Susan says, a short signatory mumble of sound deep in her throat.

“My Father gave it to me. He was an explorer see, he travelled all over. He always promised he’d take me along one day, suppose that’s what you tell your children when you’re absent nearly all the time.”

Susan swallows, unsure what to say. Conversation wasn’t her strong point. Now, observation, that’s another matter.

Millie’s eyelids flutter and she attempts to holster that mischievous strand of hair again, in vain of course.

“Anyway, that holiday with my Father never came around. He passed away, you see. Contracted some kind of deadly disease from the tropics. I remember my Mother complaining about the fortune it cost her to have his body shipped back.”

“Millie…” Susan says, reaching out to hold Millie’s hand.

Millie takes it and holds it tight, her voice quavering as she speaks, “anyway,” she gives Susan’s hand a squeeze and continues, steadier, “the point is, Bletchley pays well. Better than any copywriter job we’ll ever be able to get. After the war, let’s travel around the world.”

“Together?” Susan coughs.

“Of course!” Millie exclaims.

She snatches up the map before twisting her body around, gently placing her head in Susan’s lap. She holds up the map so Susan can see it too and starts to point out their route.

“We’ll start off in France, naturally. We’ll go East next. We should probably avoid Germany but Father’s stories of Munich were always my favourite. And then travel south. Now sweetheart, I know how much you’re in love with the Middle East but let’s make a compromise?”

“Mmm?” Susan hums as she pats Millie’s hair in her lap, gently massages her friend’s head.

“Egypt. We’ll go there and no further! Oh darling, I’m positively excited for this grand holiday!”

“Money isn’t infinite.”

Millie huffs, dropping the map on her stomach, “always the wet blanket Ms. Gray. We’ll find our way. What’s stopping two young ladies venturing out on our own?”

“Men?” Susan offers, playfully poking Millie’s nose.

Millie sits up and leans against the wall, arms folded crossly, “but it will be fun! We’ll be making our own decisions, doing our own thing. It will be so … novel!”

Susan laughs, “Oh Millie, I want to travel with you, I do, but it seems all rather impossible! All these places, right after the war has ravaged the globe?”

“Look at us! We’re female code breakers, the best! Nothing is impossible,” Millie exclaims, her cheeks reddening.

Susan holds her head in her hands and looks at Millie, bottle red hair curling around her neck, her night gown hanging loose on her shoulders. Millie the adventurer, Susan the ever pragmatic one. She reaches for the map and spreads it out before them.

She softly smiles at Millie as she speaks, “calm down Millie, I want to do this with you. I just think we should have a firm plan before us. Let’s go through your plan again shall we?”

Millie’s face relaxes and a smile creeps across her lips. She leans forward and grasps Susan’s hands as a thank you, then picks up the crinkled map.

 

 

**present.**

Have you ever had one of those friendships where you’re so close that no matter how much time has passed, no matter that you haven’t contacted each other in years, you pick back up with them as if nothing ever changed? That’s what it’s like with Millie. Not so much the other girls. They’re the same characters, same personalities, but their histories have changed so much, their circumstances so radically different than they were in nine years ago that yes, they’re sort of the same people but it’s not the same at all compared to Millie. Millie’s the same girl she was back then, the same soft, jolly girl. Smart, caring, fun. How could Susan not want to run away with her? How did she think that becoming some man’s wife was a good idea? How did she ever think that was her destiny? And since _when_ did she believe in that sort of thing?

 

 

   **past.**

Susan’s never been the one to drink to excess, granted, she has a perfectly good reason to do such a thing if she desired to. The war is over, officially, irrefutably, and Susan’s had to retire to her bedroom. Who knows how many more nights she’ll have in this room? Will tomorrow be the day they force them all to move out, abandon ship. Will Bletchley be repurposed? What will happen to the offices, the funny old building Susan has called home for years.

Susan lies back on her rickety bed, the wood creaking beneath her weight like she weighs a million tonnes. Millie’s map is stuck on her wall, the only piece of ornamentation. Susan’s never been the one for superficiality. She drags her fingers over the old paper, she’s almost afraid of taking it down, it’s going to crumble without a doubt. She thinks about taking it down right then and there, marking the end of an era. The paper will flake as she takes out the pins, like ashes burnt over time.

Millie bursts through their bedroom door, kicking off her heels as she stumbles in.

“Darling, why aren’t you out with us? We’re meant to be _celebrating_!” Millie cries, holding onto the door knob, swinging it back and forth precariously.

“You know me Millie, I’d much rather stay in than go out,” Susan says, rolling away from Millie.

In moments she feels the mattress dip as Millie slides onto the bed behind her. The amount of creaking the wooden frame makes in protest is absolutely ridiculous and Susan can’t help but laugh. She turns over, face merely centimetres away from Millie’s. Millie folds her hands underneath her cheek and Susan smells the alcohol on Millie’s breath. It’s not much, but enough to make Millie a bit silly. Millie’s still laughing and Susan watches her friend’s rise and fall of her chest, the way her waist curves like she’s posing for some raunchy magazine.

Susan admits she’s a little fuzzy herself, ever so slightly, a light blur over her vision. Millie’s got her best red dress on, her red hair curly and loose and her red lips mouthing sweet strawberries in the air.

“Mille, is it really the end?” Susan finds herself asking.

Millie doesn’t say anything. She’s a rose in the moonlight and she kisses Millie’s petal lips, and Susan won’t lie that she hasn’t dreamed about Millie or thought about their future together. She feels young and free and infinite and the finality of the war is a tangible reality when she’s got her lips on Millie’s her hands softly coiling around Millie’s waist, semi silk cotton dress mere fibres between skin. Millie cups Susan’s cheek, fiddles with the loose strands of hair that betray her perfection, or perhaps mark her perfection as honest.

Hot heat spreads to her stomach, thick and heavy and encumbering like a disease, the disease that killed Millie’s Father, but Susan’s a strong girl, her immune system is impeccable, she’ll live through it, survive with it, live to tell the tale. Millie smells sweet and like red and not the red of blood or violence but of roses and love and Susan repositions herself on the bed, Millie careful on top. Millie tries to be gentle but despite Susan’s immunity, her skin is sensitive, it’s got to balance out somewhere. Millie’s touch leaves pinkness wherever she goes, the remnants of red, of Millie, on her skin.

Susan lets Millie thread her fingers through Susan’s hair, lets her spread it out over the pillow, and they hold back giggles in favour of moans when the bed creaks from their actions. Millie slips her hand beneath Susan’s nightgown, fondles her breast. Susan’s eyes flutter and she moves Millie’s hand down to the sensitive skin above her knickers, prompting her to swallow a laugh, instead she hums quietly, dragging Millie’s manicured nails over her skin. Millie, her arm caught awkwardly between Susan’s nightgown, falls to Susan’s side. The sudden movement causes the bed to squeak particularly loud, breaking the air filled with needy breaths. There is a moment’s pause, then the two are immediately giddy with laughter.

Then, a thrashing, stomping sound reverberates through their shared bedroom door. Millie snaps her hand off Susan as a man forces his way through the door, stumbling in with a bottle in his hand.

“Millie! Millie oh there you are my sweet, you left me stranded in that _awful_ party! So many officials, and my Millie is not to be seen!” The man says, swaying as he stumbles across the floor to Millie.

Millie sits up and speaks crossly, “Richard I asked you to leave me alone.”

Richard throws himself on Millie, alcohol sloshing over Millie’s back as he attempts to kiss her neck. Millie tries to push him off but he ends up falling onto Susan’s legs. She draws them up quickly, disgusted, and having truly a lot of trouble to think of a good reason not to kick him in the face.

“Richard you absolute brute! Get out!” Millie cries, trying to shove the man off the two of them.

Richard lolls around on the bed, clawing at the girls, trying to grab a tit or a leg or a strand of hair, whatever he could reach. He drawls, “Millie, my love! This hurts me! You said you loved me!”

Millie sighs and gets off Susan’s bed, trying to drag Richard with her. He clings to her shoulder and tries to whisper something in Millie’s ear, but it’s really hard for Susan to not have heard it.

“You said you’d run off with me and we’d get _married_!” He half shouts, so drunk he can’t determine just how loud he’s being.

Susan looks away, looks down to the floor at Millie’s map crumpled on the floorboards and she can’t help but theorise how many men Millie’s seen in the time Susan’s known her, if she’s seen a man since they kissed that night, or since they made love for the first time. She thinks about this angrily as the touch of Millie still lingers bellow her belly button. She has this overwhelming feeling of needing to escape to her safe spot, but the thing was that she was already in her safe spot – in her room amongst her own possessions and Millie’s decorations and stories in view, her wardrobe left open to show off her clothes. And here she is, sitting in her own space and having it being invaded by this grotesque man. She sees a wisp of dark red fall over her Millie, watches as it coagulates with the deep red of love and it turns to hate and disgust.

The man falls to his knees, clutches at Millie’s legs like a baby. In an instant, Susan has no room left for loathing. Instead she accommodates guilt and removes herself from the room, a spectre gazing over the scene. She has been thinking about her actions for a while now but her analysis has only just crystallised, only just been magnified into the truth she’s been otherwise ignoring. Richard’s drunken explosion into Susan’s life highlights a need for her quiet extraction. She’s been keeping Millie from living her life and she needs to stop being selfish, needs to stop romanticising a lifestyle that shouldn’t be an option for her, that she shouldn’t even have considered as an option.

 

 

     **Present.**

She takes the train home because well, there isn’t any other option. She grips the leather seats all the way home, wary of every glance a male dares to give her. She slips into her house, toasty, warm from the fireplace, and bodies and smiles. She recites the story to her family, a strategy in the making. In bed she lays still with her husband beside her, snoring peacefully, his life a fraction beyond stagnant, just the way he likes it. And she tries to sleep, she’s been out late, she’s worked hard, her feet are blistered and sore and she longs for a bath but no time for that, only time for rest.

She closes her eyes and her mind is filled with a million thoughts. Every time she tries to calm herself, count sheep, her mind is drawn to her friendly reunion and it’s the old man’s heart beating under the floorboards, a feature highlighted in her room which she cannot ignore; Millie’s postcards. Susan remembers receiving each one and quickly stashing them away in her pocket. Later, when her children were off to school and her husband at work, she would take it out of her pocket and no, she never could read them. Instead, she put them where they belonged. Tied up neatly in a stack, wrapped up in cloth and tucked snug inside a show box, home to the underneath of her bed. As if that amount of wrapping was going to help her forget.

As if seeing Millie wasn’t going to make her remember.

That night back at Bletchley, the night Susan’s fantasy broke away to reality, she separated herself from Millie completely. Partially on purpose, partially by force. The war had ended and the men were returning home, there was no place at Bletchley for many of her female friends. Motherhood presented itself as the only option for a woman of her age, tasked with re-populating England, free labour within their own homes. Susan was aimless, lost, and it only took the introduction by her Mother to a handsome-ish young man that got her mind working on the next code to break – society.

How to fit in as a woman who had prior ‘clerical’ work experience, how to find a suitable husband, how to settle down with him, find a nice place to live, start a family, and so on. That was Susan’s life after Bletchley, solving society’s norms, learning how to assimilate.

She had grown so used to it that she had forgotten she ever even did mental planning. It only took spending some time with her girls again that she remembered what it was like to think outside of the box, so to say. At home, at the shops, at friends’, she was always trying to keep up that performance. To only speak a certain way to certain people, to behave like this, to do only that. She had grown so used to it that she’s only just remembering how excruciating it all is in comparison. Being with the girls, being with Millie, makes her feel free, makes her feel like she can do anything… that gosh, she has to laugh a bit, that she can actually be intellectually challenged! How arrogant!

Those postcards, her last possession of Millie’s aside from memories, a weight on her, linking her soul to the presence beneath her bed. She’s drawn towards them, pulled like a magnet and well, what else is she to do on a sleepless night?

She feels like a child who has snuck into her parent’s room to look at her Christmas presents the night before. Careful sliding out of bed, listening to the levels of breath, avoiding that creak in the floorboards. The kitchen light blares as she flicks it on, the bulb a fluorescent moon in the night sky. She places the box on the table, the dusty old thing against the sterile counter.

Suddenly she feels dizzy and she has to take a seat, the light a magnified lens of the sun, glaring on her skin and she feels a horrible amount of dread well up within her. She left Millie so badly, she left her and didn’t speak to her for nine years. Nine whole years. How childish of her to think that time can heal pain, as if she could think that Millie could even have forgiven her. How did Millie do it? How did she even talk to her, how does Millie not hate her? How can she be so humble after being ignored for so long? The way she left things… they still haven’t talked about it.

Susan unfolds the stale wrapping, rusted with age and she figures she should start at the start. Their separation was hard. Susan felt that if she broke away from Millie she would do the same with the other girls, that way she wouldn’t hear about them all. Less knowledge made it easier to not know. Technically the first was a letter, sent to her mother’s address because the dear old thing never understood why her daughter suddenly stopped talking to such a good friend. Cursive words tried to explain away what happened and years and years have gone by without Susan giving much thought to it but the glass has been cracked and she’s forced to remember, forced to rethink it, re-analyse it in every way possible until yes, finally, one matches with Millie’s account.

It should give her closure but it only makes her feel worse. It was like, somewhere down the road, Susan had decided how Millie felt when all she should have done was stopped herself from assuming the worst, make contact, rekindle friendships because that’s all it probably would have taken. Instead Susan was stubborn in her belief that she knew Millie better than herself, that she was doing Millie a favour or some song like that. When really, Susan was just a coward.

A postcard with a watercolour painting of the White Cliffs of Dover stuck out of the pile. Susan plucks it out and flips it over. The message is a memory she has always been unsure about, like one of those scenes you think about too hard that you become to believe you imagined it entirely yourself. The stamp was dated 8 years ago, only a year after she had abandoned her Bletchley life. On the card, Millie wrote that she had thought she had seen Susan at a train station somewhere, that she thought they’d exchanged smiles from the opposite platforms, a permission to farewell. Millie noted how large Susan looked, of course she was pregnant, her first child due not too long after she received that postcard. And Susan recalled the wind sweeping through the station as trains rolled in, Millie smiling at her from across the train tracks, a pseudo physical-mental division between them. Timothy slips his arm around Susan’s waist and she’s steered away, only just catches Millie’s red hair caught in the wind.

 

     **Past.**

Susan stands in front of her mirror, drags out her hair tie with a sigh.

“Susan dear, you should wear your hair out more often,” Millie says as she comes into the bedroom, softly bumping the door shut with her hip.

Combing her fingers through her hair, Susan says, “hmm, tying it up is the only way I can get it to behave.”

Millie chuckles and says softly, "you're just lazy."

At the familiar sound of a plastic lid popping off, a mechanic twist, Susan turns around to see Millie with lipstick in hand. "You're not going out are you?"

“Oh sweetheart, a woman must always look tantalising whenever possible. And that, of course, means re-applying lippy after a long day at work,” Millie says. She kisses the air, then throws a laugh over her shoulder, “if you put more effort into your appearance you would understand.”

“I put effort into my appearance,” Susan says with a frown.

Millie quirks her perfectly plucked eyebrow, “a bit of colour on your lips wouldn’t hurt.”

Susan is about to retort when Millie quickly tugs Susan down onto her bed beside her. She poises the lipstick in her hands before Susan, who flinches purely out of surprise.

Millie puts a hand on Susan’s shoulder, gentle but firm, “it’s alright, just try it. You can take it off right away if you don’t like it.”

Susan nods, taking in the scent of Millie's perfume. She watches as Millie's eyes focus, feels the careful strikes go across her lips. This close, Susan thinks she can see speckles of brown roots amongst Millie's red hair. Susan knew that of course the shade Millie wore couldn't possibly be true, even though there was ample evidence of the contrary. Although the evidence are all ones Millie procured, and so without investigating deeper, Susan was willing to keep up the charade. 

“Your lips are so perfect,” Millie whispers, then straightens her back and grins.

Millie plucks her compact mirror from her bedside table and passes it to Susan. Susan looks only briefly before shutting it.

“I’m sorry, it’s just, it’s weird to look at myself and not see what I’m used to seeing,” Susan says. Heat rushes up her spine, a horrible sunburn on her neck. She didn’t mean to sound ungrateful.

Millie shakes her head and takes Susan’s hands in hers, “darling you look absolutely scrumptious, I just want to kiss your red apple lips.”

Susan blushes and her hands begin to sweat. She looks down at her hands in Millie’s, her friend's so soft from years and years of moisturising. She picks one of Millie’s hands up and presses her lips on the back of it, leaving a red imprint. After a moment she feels even more embarrassed – why on Earth did she do that?

When she looks up again, Millie’s smiling, and she says coyly, “you can do better than that,” and she leans in and she kisses Susan’s lips, red on red, apples and apples, strawberries and strawberries.

Millie tastes like cigarettes and fruit and her soft skin is the velveteen clouds of heaven on her own lips, in her hands, on her waist. Susan’s stiff and moves her hands to Millie’s shoulders because oh, she doesn’t want Millie to stop but she also can’t move herself, she can’t find her way to Millie’s waist like Millie is hers, can’t drag her fingers around Millie’s ears like she is hers, can’t allow her tongue to enter Millie’s mouth like she is hers. Millie’s experienced, Susan’s a statue.

Susan takes in the smell of Millie, her touch, her taste, and soon she can’t breathe, over-encumbered by and overflow of information, too much overdue data crunching in the works. She breaks away and presses her forehead against Millie’s, sweaty and throbbing and they pant together, shoulders heavy, rising, chests heaving and falling.

“Susan?” Millie asks, voice raspy.

“Mm?”

“On second thought, perhaps you should steer clear of lippy or I might want to kiss you all the time.”

 

     **Present.**

The kitchen lights blare and they’re not quite like the sunlight, not quite hot enough to dry up Susan’s tears as she cries, reading through the postcards. There weren’t many at first, the few words that she received were snide and angry, stinging her re-opened wounds. After the station sighting, the tone changed, resolutely, that there was nothing to be done but to maintain contact. The use of words meant to stab Susan became diluted and the cards became fairy tales told from across the globe. And, as the months grew on, the post cards became less and less frequent, from various luxurious places. Five years on and they stopped altogether. It took Millie five years to forget.

And it took four more years after that for Susan to do something about it.


	2. Reconnections

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Susan has to make a life changing decision. It may be selfish but she's been playing the game long enough to know that if she continues to pretend to be content, everything is going to blow up in her face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here's the second and final chapter. It's a short one. Certain circumstances meant that i couldn't finish this story until now. But i think it's best that it's broken up into two chapters to represent different phases of their time together. (Also i apologise for any tense related mistakes i may have made, it's not my strong point at all!)

    **present.**

 

“Did you get him?” Lucy asks, looking up from her papers as soon as Susan enters the study.

Susan can’t bear to look at her friends. She goes straight to the coat rack, pulls on her maroon coat.

“Are you going to see him?” Jean asks.

“Yes.”

“He might remember Crowley,” Lucy suggests.

“Mm.”

“I’ll come with you,” Millie says decisively.

Susan turns around and her voice is sharp and cracked, “no. No, he’s quite old. It would be a bit overwhelming – all of us.”

“It would be upsetting for him talking about his daughter,” Jean agrees.

Millie, a frown cast over her face, says, “alright, if you’re sure.”

Susan takes a quick breath, enough to firmly say, “I’m sure,” but when she speaks she stares inbetween her friends, at the blankness of the wall uninterrupted by research papers and people and things in the way of doing what a wall’s meant to do.

 

**\- - -**

 

Crowley cuts the string and Susan’s hands wrap around the grenade. She holds on for her life, as a mother, as a wife, as a female detective, and she blanks out Crowley’s words, focuses on holding on, pushing him away, don’t let go.

Three shots, one for each life as she is brought back into reality. Crowley falls to the floor and Susan Gray is a woman in a serial killer’s basement, hands wrapped tightly around a grenade. She looks over her shoulder and she couldn’t be happier, couldn’t be prouder that her friends saw through her indignation to detect on her own.

Jean passes Millie a hairpin and Millie slips it around the clip. But Susan can’t move, can’t accept the simple fix as the means to save them all.

“Susan let go,” Millie says softly, wrapping her hands around Susan’s, “it’s alright.”

Susan sees red on Millie’s fingernails and it’s not liquid red like blood and horror but solid, solid nail polish of her friend’s, her dear friend Millie, the red queen who saved her life. She lets go and cries into Millie’s shoulder, Crowley’s life leaking away into the tiles of his basement.

“It’s alright, it’s alright.”

 

**\- - -**

 

“You should have told me.”

 

“What do I do now? What do I say?”

 

**\- - -**

 

The kettle boils and Millie puts down her book. She offers to help with the tea but Susan refuses, brings the tea over and sets it on the bedside table. Susan sips from the edge of the bed, perched on a mere centimetre of mattress. When she sets her cup down on the smooth wood Millie catches her lover’s hand, pulls it to her lips. Susan’s colour is subtlety; soft pastels, pinks, creams, whites. Millie’s always preferred statements.

She draws away and Susan hums, then shifts on the bed. She lays beside Millie, face to face, and Millie can’t help but beam.

She pauses, “something’s not right here.”

Susan bites her lip, “what is it?”

Millie kisses Susan’s forehead, sneaks her hand over Susan’s head and slips off her hair tie. Relief washes over Susan’s face and Millie lets Susan’s hair fall about her face in gentle waves.

“Never tie it up in the house,” Millie murmurs, “let it out, let go.”

She presses her lips against Susan’s, curls locking around Susan’s ears, round eyes, round nose, beautiful soft skin, creased and folded, her face the shape of a petal. Rose petal, Millie’s rosen fruit, rosen lover, made of roses, made with love and passion and beauty.

Interlocking fingers. _I want to taste you, pleasure you, we’ve missed out on so much time. Let’s be adventurous here in the bed sheets_.

Arching back. _Tell me stories, stories of your adventures with men and mysterious ladies. Did you explore the tombs of Egypt? Dig your way through the catacombs of Rome? Did you trample through the rainforests of the Amazon, hoist yourself atop Amazonian girls, forget all men and dominate. Tell me where you’ll go now –_

Nibbled ear. _Where we’ll go –_

Gentle fingers, soft tissue, warmth, heat. _Where we’ll go together. To Paris to scale the Eiffel Tower? Will we excavate the library of Alexandria, burnt to dust. To the Mayan pyramids, obelisks in the forests. How far will we go, how will we disregard the world, show me how, how will we achieve it. How will we ignore the hidden codes, unsolved mysterious of life, the city lost under the sea._

Tingling, moaning. Connections snap and reform. The flick of elastic, carefully cracked, effortlessly broken, torn apart, heart and soul. Sore and loved, flushed, fleshed out. _Shh now, honey bear, sweet honey suckle, please don’t tie your hair up, let me see you, let me see all of you. A feature, a jewel. Let your hair out, loose around your face, let me kiss you, let me be close, never leave._

Exasperated breaths, heaving, catching, steadiness. _I love you, I love you. Forgive me for abandoning you. I want to do everything with you, I always have._

Her thighs damp but hot, Millie holds onto Susan tight, Susan’s slick hands press on her spine.

“Let’s leave everything behind, run our banks dry and live as vagabonds.”

Susan is still, a statue, volcanic rock, sweltering fires within.

**\- - -**

 

At first there were few questions. Two women living together, albeit temporarily, was deemed normal. When neighbours realised their age, realised their stay, realised the children arriving but not staying, a husband treated with mutual kindness and respect and waved farewell at the doorstep. They would ask and they would receive little because code breakers knew how to be cryptic when they needed to be.

She had never before spent her savings from Bletchley, had always planned for her savings to become a trust fund for her children. It pained her to use some, but she knew she would be able to replenish it eventually. It wasn’t about getting help, not from her ex-husband, not from her family. It wasn’t that she wasn’t thankful that they’d even offer, it was that she had to do it for herself, make her own money, make her own decisions. She chose to separate from Timothy, she chose to move in with Millie, she chose that and maybe it was a bad decision, maybe she should have waited until her children were grown up. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t wait. She couldn’t put up with the façade any longer. It wasn’t her. It should never have been her destiny to be a housewife, not stunning enough to be a trophy wife.

The transition was hard but she felt better, felt true. Her work at Bletchley and on the Crowley case gave her recognition enough to secure a research position under Alan Turing, doing similar sort of stuff she did a decade ago. It pays well, she gets Lucy a job there too. The offer was there for Jean but she felt she couldn’t make the step, completely understandable. Millie kept her job at the café and they both tried not to work too hard, to not take on too much work. Just work enough. Enough to rebuild her children’s trust fund. Enough to live comfortably.

Millie’s flat was small, had enough space for a fold out mattress. Weekend sleep overs with her children worked well while they were young. Susan was already planning for the future, saving for the time when they would need a bigger place, an actual house with rooms and privacy and a garden even. Saving for a time when they would need to, and be able to, create a home for her children. She was determined, fuelled on by Millie’s loyalty to her and her unquestionable, surprisingly, support from Timothy. He took the kids on the train every Saturday morning and picked them up every Sunday evening. Each would part ways, children learning, adults working. Making money, making saving, making sense. She was determined to make life work not the way it functioned but the way she needed it to work, the way it should be. 

 

**\- - -**

 

The afternoon sun pours through pink curtains, throwing an orange hue over Millie’s form, lounging comfortably on top of their bed. Red hair splayed out in loose curls, coiling around her neck. Susan sits beside her, caressing her palm. She recalls the darkness of Crowley’s basement, the musky smell and the dust. She will never forget that dread, that feeling of despair.

As if sensing Susan’s recollections, Millie squeezes Susan’s hand. It’s jolting, jolts her to reality like Millie did in the basement. Susan will never forget the texture of the grenade beneath her skin, never forget that moment when she thought she was alone, thought that her destiny was to die there in Crowley’s basement, obliterated. She can’t shake that feeling, like there’s a grenade perpetually ready to go off, one slip up and you see white. But it’s about to go off and Millie’s hands are there, rid tipped fingernails, there to disarm it, to take it apart and help Susan make sense of it, decode the world crumbling around her. Decipher a spot for just the two of them amongst the craziness of the world. As long as they’re together, things will work out. They always have. 


End file.
